Porto’s rise highlights fall of European giants

Share via

“LIFE, friends, is boring. We must not say so,” John Berryman, the poet, wrote. For life, you may as well read football. Of course, there are exceptions that prove the rule. No one in their senses could call Wednesday’s European Cup semi-final, second leg at Stamford Bridge boring, though what it did show in its error-ridden, rollercoaster way, was the diminishing quality of the competition — and football in general.

Boring to a degree was the previous day’s match between Deportivo La Coruña and FC Porto, in which a carelessly conceded penalty was the only goal of the game. So